NEW YORK — The airport shuttle driver accused of plotting a bombing in New York had contacts with al-Qaida that went nearly all the way to the top, to an Osama bin Laden confidant believed to be the terrorist group's leader in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian reputed to be one of the founders of the terrorist network, used a middleman to contact Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi as the 24-year-old man hatched a plot to use homemade backpack bombs, perhaps on the city's mass transit system, the two intelligence officials said.

Intelligence officials declined to discuss the nature of the contact or whether al-Yazid contacted Zazi to offer simple encouragement or help with the bombing plot prosecutors say Zazi was pursuing.

Al-Yazid's contact with Zazi indicates that al-Qaida leadership took an intense interest in what U.S. officials have called one of the most serious terrorism threats crafted on U.S. soil since the 9/11 attacks.

"Zazi working with the al-Qaida core is exceptionally alarming," said Daniel Bynam of the Brookings Institution's Saban Center. "The al-Qaida core is capable of far more effective terrorist attacks than jihadist terrorists acting on their own, and coordination with the core also enables bin Laden to choose the timing to maximize the benefit to his organization."

Three suspects charged in a wide-ranging terror probe are going to court in New York City and Denver.

Colorado air shuttle driver Najibullah Zazi (nah-jee-BOO'-lah ZAH'-zee) and his father have detention hearings later Thursday in Denver. A New York City imam, Ahmad Afzali (AKH'-mahd ahf-ZAH'-lee), has a hearing in New York City.

The three were charged last week with lying to FBI investigators trying to uncover a possible plot to detonate homemade bombs. Officials remain unsure of the scope or target of a possible terror attack.

They're casting a wide net to try and determine who might be connected to Zazi, who authorities have linked to al-Qaida. Hundreds of investigators are back at a Queens neighborhood that was the site of antiterror raids over a week ago.

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Colorado health officials are considering whether to make medical marijuana rules more restrictive.

The state health board has opened a hearing Monday on a proposal to limit marijuana providers to five patients each. The move is aimed at dispensaries that have sprouted to serve a growing number of patients across Colorado.

Hundreds of people have packed a hearing room on the Auraria Campus in downtown Denver.

Colorado voters allowed the use of medical marijuana in 2000 by passing Amendment 20.

The board voted to limit caregivers to five patients in 2004, but a Denver judge threw that out three years later because the limit was enacted without a hearing.